Advent: The Spirit of Fear - Joseph

Melina Alejandra Hutchins
New River Valley Church
Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

Christmas is hands down my favorite time of the year. If it were up to me, my house would be fully decorated for Christmas by mid-October. I love the songs, the smells, the lights, the food, and the family traditions. I love being able to remember the birth story of Jesus. Every year, I am literally filled with an extra dose of joy throughout the Christmas season. 

This year, however, is different. In August of this year, I gave birth to our first child—our beautiful daughter—Sofia Alejandra Hutchins. She was born at 40 weeks and 4 days, 7lbs., 21inches, full head of black curly hair, perfect pregnancy… stillborn.

It still feels like I am talking about someone else’s tragedy when I speak about my daughter. On a Saturday, I stopped feeling her happy movements and we went to the hospital to see if everything was okay with Baby Sofia. They searched for her heartbeat for what felt like forever. Then they told us that they couldn’t find a heartbeat.  With my husband on my left and my mother on my right we broke into true weeping. My husband held me and sobbed, my mother went straight to my belly, cried, and prayed. My heart was struck with fear as I tried to mentally prepare for what was ahead.  The only scripture that came to mind was Psalm 23:4. 

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.”

 I was given an epidural, pumped with Pitocin for 30 hours and then the doctor decided we had to do a C-section. We had to make so many important decisions about my daughter in those hours. What do we want to do with her body? What kind of ceremony do we want? Do we want a photographer to come in to take photos of her when she’s born? We had to figure out how to get my family across the border from Canada when the borders were still shut down. We had to look at which gravestone we wanted. We looked at baby sized graves for baby sized resting beds.  

Fear was present in every single conversation and decision. Fear about making the wrong decision, fear of my daughter’s death being my fault, fear about the hit this would take on my marriage, fear of not being able to have children. Fear of seeing my daughter possibly deformed from being inside me, not knowing how long ago she had passed. Fear was so present that all I could do was keep repeating, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.”

I realize this devotional is not very warm and fuzzy as a Christmas devotional usually is! However, I think death, grief, and suffering are not only powerful ways to remember what we have in Jesus, but they are also necessary. Grief has been a teacher and fear has been a close companion in these times. We will all experience loss and suffering in this life, that is certain. I believe that Joseph and Mary were counted as those who suffered, and in that suffering, also experienced great fear. There is very little we actually know about Joseph from the bible, and we must imagine a lot of his story and experiences from context.

In Matthew 1, Joseph is told not to fear when he learns of Mary’s pregnancy.

“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in         her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

In Joseph’s culture, shame and honor defined who people were and their standing in society. Choosing to move forward in marriage would be devastating to Joseph’s livelihood. The angel of the Lord told Joseph the reason all of this was happening, so Joseph decided to obey even at such a great cost. Despite the hardship of moving forward in the marriage, they welcomed baby Jesus into the world and celebrated this new life.  

In the next chapter, the angel of the Lord visits Joseph again, telling him to take Mary and baby Jesus to Egypt and flee because Herod was trying to kill Jesus. They leave almost immediately and as a result, Herod kills all the young male children in Bethlehem and the surrounding area, in a catastrophic attempt to take Jesus’ life. If Joseph wasn’t fearful the first time the angel approached him, he certainly was the second time around. Imagine what Joseph must have felt when he knew that Herod wiped out this group of children all because of Jesus! It must have been hard to trust the promise from the angel of the Lord, that Jesus “will save his people from their sins.” 

Being from the line of David, I like to think that Joseph was also reminded of Psalm 23 during this dark time. He was in a foreign land, fleeing for the safety of his child, and eventually learning that his people’s children were killed. Fear can take many forms. For me recently, fear has meant not being in control of anything and fear of the worst things happening. I feel like the worst thing happened to me. I had absolutely no control over it, and I still have no answers for it, either medical or divine.

Something I am coming to grips with when I reflect on Jesus and the circumstances surrounding his birth, is this quote I heard from Timothy Keller, “God will allow evil only to the degree that it brings about the very opposite of what it intends.” God doesn’t bring evil and suffering to his people, but he permits and limits the evil to be used for eventual good. Isn’t that true, time and time again, in the bible? 

We can look back at stories of suffering in the bible and see what God was doing and how he was using it for good. Obviously, Jesus dying on the cross is something we are grateful for everyday! However, for many of us in the depths of our sorrow and grief, the reason for our suffering is not always clear.

While many of us wait in the mystery of why evil has touched our lives, or touched the lives of our loved ones, we can look to the example of Jesus’ victory. Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection all had suffering close by, but they eventually led to the saving of many souls. Whether in our lifetime or when we are in the new Eden, we have hope that God is partnering with his people in the good and the bad for his wonderful plans.

Questions/Practices for Reflection: 

1) What are some difficult things in your life right now? Are there things in your life that are creating fear in you? Take some time to create your own Psalm of lament. We can grieve and walk through these things with God, having hope all the while. Read Psalm 23 and Psalm 42 for inspiration.

2) Take some time to reflect through past trials and write a gratitude list, thanking God for all the ways he worked through those dark valleys. It doesn’t need to be long, and you can add to your gratitude list in the following days or weeks as things come to mind.